Saint Dominic Nguyễn Văn Hạnh: An Unyielding Witness of Faith
Saint Dominic Nguyễn Văn Hạnh was born in 1772 in Năng A village, Nghệ An province, into a family with moral and religious discipline. Deeply influenced by the missionary example of the Dominican friars, young Hạnh asked Bishop Delgado - Y for permission to live in the House of God. The bishop agreed, entrusting him to Father Liêm for care and instruction, and sent him to the seminary for training.
After being ordained a priest, Father Hạnh continued his religious journey by requesting to join and making his perpetual vows in the Dominican Order on August 22, 1826, at the age of 54.
Persecution and Steadfastness
When the persecution of Christians broke out, Father Hạnh was quietly carrying out his pastoral ministry in Quần Anh Hạ village. Recognizing the tense situation, he planned to move to Trung Thành village to avoid detection. However, two people from Quần Anh village, who had promised to take him to a safe place, betrayed him and handed him over to the authorities. On May 7, 1838, he was escorted to the town of Nam Định.
There, the mandarins repeatedly tried to persuade him to renounce his faith. When ordered to step over the Cross, Father Hạnh firmly declared: “The Cross symbolizes salvation for us; therefore, no one is allowed to trample on it, as that is a grave sin.”
On another occasion, when forced to trample on an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he respectfully took the image and kissed it. This act resulted in him being painfully whipped 100 times. Seeing that they could not shake the priest’s faith, the mandarins drafted a verdict and sent it to the imperial capital to request approval from Emperor Minh Mạng. On June 28, 1838, the sentence of beheading for Priest Hạnh was officially approved by the emperor.
Day of Martyrdom and Glory
On the morning of August 1, 1838, a military officer entered the prison to escort Father Hạnh to his execution. Saint Dominic Nguyễn Văn Hạnh was beheaded at the Bảy Mẫu execution ground. The presiding mandarin ordered that his body and head be buried on the spot. Later, his remains were exhumed and reinterred at Lục Thuỷ parish, in the Central Diocese (now the Bùi Chu Diocese).
For his courage and ironclad faith, Priest Dominic Nguyễn Văn Hạnh was beatified on May 27, 1900. He was officially canonized as a saint on June 19, 1988, becoming a source of pride and an exemplary model for the Vietnamese faithful community.
The content about the saint in this post is summarized and paraphrased from the book “Hạnh Các Thánh Tử Đạo Việt Nam” - Lives of the Vietnamese Martyrs (Vietnamese Bishops’ Conference, edited by Bishop Peter Nguyễn Văn Khảm, Tôn Giáo Publishing House, 2018). This post is not a verbatim copy but a re‑presentation based on the original source.